Who was Jani Chacko? Know more about Usha Uthup’s late husband and tea connoisseur

Who was Jani Chacko?

Born in 1946, Jani Chacko Uthup was son of Brigadier CC Uthup. He belonged to a Syrian Christian family in Kottayam. Jani completed his schooling from Chennai (then Madras), and then shifted to Kolkata (then Calcutta) to find work, where he met the legendary singer and future wife Usha Uthup at the nightclub Trincas in 1969 during her gig.

What did he do?

Usha Uthup’s second husband Jani Uthup was an active part of India’s tea fraternity working with J Thomas & Co. He was integral to India’s tea plantation industry. His work in the industry dates all the way back to 1967. As shared by the Bygone Plantation Days group, Jani Chacko Uthup joined as a tea taster and trainee with Thomas, Cumberlege and Inskipp in London, and then joined the company later as an active member.

Usha and Jani’s love story

According to Vikas Kumar Jha’s book The Queen of Indian Pop: The Authorised Biography of Usha Uthup, she was still married to her first husband Ramu, when she met Jani for the first time. While interacting between her gigs, Jani and Usha fell in love, and later decided to get married post Usha and Ramu’s split. The story of Usha and Jani was quite the tale of romance at the time according to Jha’s writings in Usha’s biography, as she ended her five year-long marriage to be with Jani.

Jani is survived by Usha, and their two kids – daughter Anjali Uthup and son Sunny Uthup.

Meanwhile, Usha Uthup was conferred upon the Padma Bhushan by the government of India this year. She’s been singing in Bollywood since the early 1970s. She’s also sung in Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu movies. Usha has also acted in a few films like 7 Khoon Maaf.